Houston Rockets: Do Rafael Stone and Stephen Silas deserve to stick around?

How Rafael Stone gave the Houston Rockets a brighter future

Now, onto the good stuff. The Rockets signing of Christian Wood was one of the best moves of the offseason and the same can be said of Jae’Sean Tate. Both players have dramatically outperformed their contracts and are young enough to be around when the Rockets have a competitive roster again.

Kenyon Martin Jr, a second-round pick, has impressed in his rookie season, and landing Kevin Porter Jr, for a second-round pick from the Cleveland Cavaliers, was a fantastic low-risk high-reward deal. Stone did get lucky that Victor Oladipo turned down their extension offer, a move he surely regrets now, as he’s set to undergo a second surgery on the right quad tendon that robbed him of over a year of basketball.

If you split Stone’s first season as general manager into two groups, the cleaning up franchise part and the rebuild part, he had a highly successful debut. He did his best to clean up the mess left behind by the previous regime and made a bunch of savvy low-cost moves for the future.

Tilman Fertitta shouldn’t be happy with the Rockets’ season as everything that could go wrong did and a 16 win season cannot be overlooked. That being said, Rafael Stone proved he’s the right man to oversee the rebuild and he has earned the chance to see it through.

Next: Did Stephen Silas earn another season?